For some it sounded muffled and far away, as though somewhere in the distance a big balloon had popped. For others the terror was all too immediately apparent.
The lights had just come on and Ariana Grande had left the stage after concluding an elaborate three-hour, four-part entertainment extravaganza with an encore performance of her latest single, ‘Dangerous Woman’.
At 10.30pm following a sold-out show in the 21,000-capacity Manchester Arena, thousands of fans began to gather up their belongings and filter slowly out of four exits.
For the first milliseconds minds did not immediately connect the sound with an explosion or a bomb.
“It sounded like a big balloon popping, but it was kind of muffled, like it wasn’t in the stadium itself,” said a young Mancunian fan, identified as Sammy, in a video he recorded of his experience and posted on Periscope.
“There were a few screams, then there was silence. Then the whole arena literally split like the Red Sea – everyone was trampling over each other, sprinting to get to the nearest exit. It was like a scene out of a horror movie.”
Everyone was just running to any exit they could find, as quickly as they could
In a short video posted to Twitter, where she had been counting down the days to the concert, Ellie Cheetham of Wigan captured the moment of the explosion, when fans milling around the arena were startled by a loud, muffled bang.
“The lights were already on so we knew it wasn’t part of the show,” said Erin McDougle, 20, from Newcastle.
Chaos
Then confusion gave way to bewilderment, which in turn gave way to chaos. Witnesses described thousands of people running for their nearest exit, trampling over others in their panic.
Majid Khan, 22, had been on his way out of the venue with his sister when the “huge bomb-like bang” went off. He and others said it seemed to come from the tiered seating stage-right, near the Hunts Bank entrance and exit.
“Everyone from the other side of the arena, where the bang was heard from, suddenly came running towards us.”
Khan said the crush to get out of the Trinity Way exit, across the arena from the apparent source of the explosion, was blocked: “Everyone was just running to any exit they could find, as quickly as they could.
“Everyone was in a huge state of panic, calling each other ... it was just extremely disturbing for everyone there.”
Elizabeth Welsby, a 50-year-old teacher from Bolton, told BuzzFeed the concourse of the arena was thick with smoke and the smell of explosive.
All hell broke loose and everyone was running and screaming
“All hell broke loose and everyone was running and screaming. We did run over two or three posters smeared with blood. Everyone was just screaming, lots of people were wondering what was going on.”
Those who had left the show before the encore was over, via either the Hunts Bank or City Room exits, were closer to the source of the explosion.
Severed artery
Ellie Ward, 17, said her 64-year-old grandfather was caught in the blast while waiting for her and her friend to emerge from the arena. He was hit by falling glass while standing by the merchandise stand in the corridors underneath the tiered seating.
Ward said he had severed an artery. “He said he only realised what had happened when he felt the side of his head and it was bleeding. ... We heard a massive shudder. We knew something was wrong.”
Oliver Jones, 17, was in the toilet when he heard the explosion echo around the foyer of the area. “I saw people running and screaming towards one direction and then many turning around to run back the other way.
“Security was running as well as the fans and concert-goers ... You see this on the news all the time and never expect it to happen to you.”
Abby Mullen, from the town of Airdrie in North Lanarkshire, Scotland, wrote on Facebook that she had left “seconds” before the show finished in the hope of skipping the queue for a taxi. The blast went off metres in front of her.
Mullen posted graphic images of blood in her hair.
“That sound, the blood and those who were running around clueless with body parts and bits of skin missing will not be leaving my mind any time soon or the minds of those involved ...,” she wrote.
“I understand these images might be upsetting however I feel as though people need to be shown just how cruel this world really is.”
Impact
Outside the arena, the scale of the emergency was becoming clear. The blast rocked the neighbourhood, with witnesses reporting smoke streaming from the arena entrance. Joe Gregory, parked outside the arena while waiting to pick up his girlfriend and her sister from the concert, captured its impact on his car’s dashcam.
Suzy Mitchell, 26, said she heard the commotion from her bedroom at the back of an apartment block opposite the venue: “Everyone was running away in big crowds.”
Police were alerted to the explosion at 10.33pm. As dozens of ambulances and police vans streamed into the area and a helicopter flew overheard, Greater Manchester police confirmed on Twitter shortly before 11pm they were responding to an “incident” and asked people to stay away from the area.
Half an hour later, they said it was “serious”.
Inside the stadium there continued to be widespread confusion and panic as fans struggled to get out. While some had been knocked off their feet by the explosion, many were unaware of the cause of the chaos as it unfolded around them.
Robert Tempkin, 22, from Middlesbrough told the BBC that people abandoned their possessions in their haste. “Everyone was screaming and running, there were coats and people’s phones on the floor. People just dropped everything.
“Some people were screaming they’d seen blood but other people were saying it was balloons busting, or a speaker had been popped.”
Sammy, gathered with other fans at the backstage entrance where he’d run in the moments after the blast, said he was told by a member of the arena’s security staff that the bang had been caused by a speaker falling over. He later realised that it was “their way of calming people down”. “There were many distraught children crying and having panic attacks at this point,” he told the Guardian.
Covered in blood
Emerging from the stadium, Sammy found the street closed and full of police. A public address system repeated an alert for the area to be evacuated. “There were people in the street saying it was a bomb. We didn’t know what to believe.”
His father, waiting to pick him up near Victoria station, saw a steady stream of concert-goers covered in blood, said Sammy. “One guy was carrying his daughter in his arms, begging for an ambulance.”
Many disoriented and distressed fans took refuge at the nearby Steven Charles snooker club, where a barman known as Tyler told the Press Association people had come in “with panic attacks and in all kinds of disarray”.
He had seen people lying on the ground, covered in blood.
“We felt something but didn’t know what it was – there was a sound like thunder. One girl had a panic attack and another had streaming tears, a woman had a heart attack just outside.”
Police later confirmed there had been 22 fatalities. The north-west ambulance service took 59 casualties from the arena to hospitals across the city, as well as treating “a number of walking wounded” on scene.
As a police cordon was established around the arena, sealing off Victoria station, and armed and masked police filled the area, people continued to stream out of the venue, visibly shell-shocked, many injured.
Some were still holding the pink balloons that Grande had released before the concert started. Guardian Service